Don't Forget To Remember
by BitterSweetBish
Summary: In 1998 John sent a 19-year-old Dean to North Dakota to investigate a rash of cattle disappearances. What was supposed to be a simple recon and report quickly becomes more complicated when the disappearances escalate to humans. Outside perspective; told from the viewpoint of an OC hunter.
1. How Memories Are Made

If it hadn't been for the gun, the first thing I would have noticed would have been his eyes. Later, I would spend years noticing those eyes, catching in them flashes of the feelings he tried to hide, tried to stuff down until he was beyond capacity and cracks began to form from the pressure. Lies that he was fine would come easily to his tongue, but never to his eyes. His eyes would reveal what raged within, pummeling him from the inside as he fought to keep it contained, to hold it back, just another way he had of putting himself between what danger lurks and the rest of the world.

Occasionally, before the cracks got deep enough to break him completely, his internal pressure valve would open and force a purge of raw emotion, tears or violence, from him. His eyes were the safety gauge.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. All this was yet to happen, moments that would exist and then transform in an instant to increasingly distant memories, memories I didn't have yet that day. The day I met Dean Winchester it was the gun I noticed first. I had to admire his choice. The 1911 was a good weapon, one of my favorites, and Dean's was a beautiful example of one. It was sleek and shiny, catching the glint of the sunlight off the polished barrel. Elaborate engravings ran the length to the mother of pearl grip, which rested comfortably in his palm as if it had been designed to fit there.

A fine weapon, well cared for, this was the third thing I took note of.

The second was the practiced ease with which he handled it. He didn't brandish it, making of it a totem for pretended strength. Nor did he baby it as if he feared the power of it. There are rules with a firearm, and even when somebody is used to handling one, there's always a part of their focus that gets reserved for taking care with proper procedure.

Not with Dean. It wasn't that he had a disregard for the power he held in his hand, but rather that he knew he had that power completely within his control. He was calm, steady, a craftsman familiar with the tool of his trade to the degree of second nature.

None of this, however, was the first thing to draw my attention, not the fine weapon, nor the expert handling of it. These were points worthy of consideration, but neither was as important as the first thing I noticed. The day I met Dean Winchester the most important feature of his beloved Colt, the thing foremost in my mind as I took in the sight of it, was the fact that it was currently aimed directly at my face.


	2. How All This Started

My last partnership, if you can call working relationships that last a few weeks, a couple of months tops, partnerships, had been with a team comprised of Rick, a seasoned veteran hunter, and a twitchy rookie named Sherry, the daughter of Rick's now deceased partner. It was a familiar story, a hunter orphan, caught up in the life by a twist of fate that had sent her headlong down a new road that she hadn't fully understood until she was too far past the last possible exit ramp to ever get off. That's the thing about the hunter's life, once you're in, there's only one way out. The best you can hope for is you'll be lucky enough when that way comes along, that it will be quick and painless. Apparently, Sherry's father hadn't been that lucky.

I hadn't pressed for details. If anyone understood about keeping a buried past in the past, it was me. In fact, with a string of false identities, and no real lasting connections, my present was pretty much perpetually in the past. Any given day I was as likely as not to be off to a new place, on a new job, the events of the previous days or weeks behind me as if they had happened in another life, to another person. I was who I was in the moment, yesterday belonging to someone else, who had owned that moment, tomorrow a blank slate waiting to be filled with whoever the next job required me to become.

I had parted ways with Rick and Sherry a few days back, partially because of Rick's intention to look into a haunting in Mini-St. Paul, which was way more population per square foot of real estate than I am generally comfortable with, but mostly it was because of Sherry. She was too much like the 16 year old I had been a handful of years and a few scars ago. Just like me, she hadn't really gotten what it meant to be a hunter when she took up the fight. Exactly unlike me, she now regretted the choice. That unvoiced but obvious regret was causing increasingly sharp stabs in my gut every time I looked at her.

Worse, she just didn't have what it took. Like I said, one way out, and for Sherry, it was going to be sooner rather than later, because her heart really wasn't in the job. Call me a coward, but I just didn't want to be around to see it happen.

So we had parted ways, exchanging contact info, and as soon as their beat up, bottom of the line RV was over the horizon I deleted and blocked both numbers. It was going to happen, and when it did, I didn't want to know about it. No sense picking up extra baggage over things I couldn't change.

They were now in the past, not my past, just the past, a past that belonged to another hunter that had been woken in the night by the whimpers of a 16 year old girl whose dreams were being invaded by the all too real nightmares that made up her life. This hunter was going to let the memories of a kid too young, doomed to a life too short, shed off her like a snake's skin, move on and leave nothing but a dried out shell of herself behind. Only way to stay sane, leave town and anything too heavy to carry got left behind, physical or emotional.

I tend towards a little more proactive than the average hunter. I don't wait for a body count to investigate. I figure, put a restless spirit to peace before it goes darkside, you don't get a body count at all. My usual procedure when transportation died up would be to dig in for an extended stay and start sweeping any potential local hot spots, cemeteries, accident sites, abandoned properties with colorful histories. You'd be surprised what other hunters miss because it never makes the papers.

At the time though, I was pretty emotionally wrecked. The idea of some time and solitude, just to get my feet back under me, was pretty appealing. I was practically spitting distance from the Lost Wood Wildlife Refuge, so I hitched a ride north. I figured to take a few days to live off the land and clear my head.

The town of Lost Wood wasn't so much a town as a collection of scattered farms and ranches with just enough civilization between them to meet the day to day needs of its small population. It wasn't a Wally-world, fast food kind of place. It was a general store, family owned diner kind of place.

It was in one such diner that I'd found myself, planning on breakfast before heading out to the refuge to just disappear into a stretch of out of the way, unpopulated wilderness. That was the plan, operative word being "was".

I was at the counter, taking a gulp of coffee and scoping the menu, when the waitress had asked, "Lookin' for a good hunt?" I hadn't realized just how frayed my nerves were until I choked, spraying coffee across the counter.

"Sorry," I sputtered, "wrong pipe. What did you say?"

"Well, from the look of you," she explained, wiping up the mess, "you're either here for the fishin' or the foulin'. More touristy folks don't tend to come through here. They head on up to Coteau to buy 'I heart North Dakota' fridge magnets and get permits for the campgrounds."

Sure, of course, military surplus pants, knee high moccasins, battered cowboy hat, carrying a trail pack that was a day away from disintegrating, what else would she think? "User friendly wilderness for the camping impaired." I joked, slipping easily into the cover story that had fallen right into my lap.

"You got that right." she laughed in agreement.

"You plan on heading out to the refuge, you watch yourself." a gruff voice interjected. On the corner stool sat a time worn man, a grandfatherly type that saw it has his duty to impart wisdom to young fools. "That ain't no city park out there. It's untouched wilderness and it can be dangerous, accidents, animals, whatnot. Sometimes, folks go out and don't come back."

I took another sip of my coffee, "Thanks for the warning, but I think I can handle myself."

"Yeah," he grunted, "I'm sure that's what Billy thought, that he could handle himself."

"Well, sure he did," the waitress, Emma by her nametag, spoke up as she wiped up my spill. "Been campin' an' fishin' that land since before he could drive legal. Weren't no call for worry."

I groaned internally. By blind luck, good or bad is a matter of opinion, I had stumbled across one of a hunter's favorite things, right after their weapon of choice and a bottle of liquid amnesia, chatty locals. Small towns, by their nature, have extremely efficient grapevines. Anyplace people might gather was essentially a temple to the gossip gods. "Sorry," I asked, "somebody didn't come back?"

Emma, the self appointed high priestess of this particular temple, had needed no other evocation to perform the rites. She launched willingly into the latest local story to tell. "Bill and Debbie Clark." she explained, "local kids, went out on one of their campin' trips and haven't been seen since."

"Nobody thought nothtin' of it at first. Wasn't the first time they didn't come back just right on time. You know how it is, young folks like that. Been livin' with Bill's folks since they married two years back. They'd want to get off just the two of 'em sometimes, so a couple-three times a year they'd head out campin'. Had a favorite spot out on the edge of the family land, right where it runs up against the refuge."

"So what happened?" I asked, "accident or animal?" So far, nothing was screaming supernatural, which made it not my problem.

Emma was only to eager too continue her narrative. "Well now, that is the peculiar thing. Don't nobody rightly know. They was due back Monday. By Thursday ol' Joe, that's Billy's daddy, he gets tired of waitin' and heads out to haul the boy's butt back to work. He found their camp all right, but them kids were just gone. Not a thing out of place, like they'd just up and walked off."

"Maybe they did." I rationalized. "Got tired of small town life and went to look more something better. And living with the in-laws like that, that had to cause some problems."

"Oh no," Emma quickly squelched my speculations, "the Clarks, they loved Debbie like she was blood, and Bill, he'd never leave that land. Talked all the time about having kids that'd grow up on it the way he did."

"You ask me," old counter guy volunteered, "whatever got 'em, same things been taking all the stock lately. Lost two cows myself."

"Killed?" I probed.

"Nope, just gone, no tracks from anything, two legged or four legged.

"Faex." I muttered to myself. so much for a rest and recoupe. Still, as jobs went it could be worse. I'd be out in my element with minimal contact with the locals. Not bad at all compared to a dungeon crawl through a city sewer system, or a cursed object that had to be traced through a dozen owners. I'd do those jobs, have done them. Didn't mean I had to like it. Give me a wilderness based cryptid any day.

Another plus, there was actually a chance at a zero body count. No bodies found meant no confirmed kill, which meant the possibility of live victims, hoping for rescue. It was low odds, but I don't know anything for sure, until I know it for sure. Never assume what you can't prove. It tends to lead you down the wrong fork, which in this business, is generally the deadly one.

Too bad I forgot that particular rule. The wrong assumption was what had landed me in my current predicament, caught at the business end of a .45, thinking that at least my luck had held on the quick and painless part.


	3. How We Worked It Out

In retrospect, it had been a stupid move to try and sneak up on him. He hadn't been hard to find. I'd barely needed the easy trail his boots had carved into the scrub. I could have followed the noise he was making with my eyes closed. This guy was clearly not at home out here. Honestly, that's probably what made me bold enough to try for the stealthy jump scare. If he hadn't seemed so out of place I might have opted for pumping him for intel.

As it was, he gave the impression of a townie thrill seeker, some punk kid out there out of curiosity, or on a dare. That was one thing I did not need, so I figured to put the fear of god in him. That way he would get gone, and stay gone, and I could take care of business without a legend tripping high schooler getting underfoot. I really was way too cocky back then.

As stupid as it was, in retrospect, at the time I was determined to make that particular mistake, so I had drawn my Bowie, and trusting the noise of his own footfalls to cover whatever sound came from my own soft-soled moccs, I closed the distance between us with carefully placed steps.

I stilled my breathing as I crept in closer, almost close enough to pounce when he turned, gun in hand. I could almost have believed he'd pulled it right out of the air with the speed of his draw.

I froze midstride, looking down the barrel of shiny, cold death. The metallic click let me know it was cocked and ready. "Well," I found my voice, "that didn't go like I planned."

"I guess not," he replied, "lose the knife."

I ran a quick check of my options and reluctantly had to admit, I didn't have a lot of them, and the ones I did have were not good. I opened my hand and the blade hit the ground, sounding just like my stomach felt.

"You know," he said, keeping the weapon trained on me while his free hand motioned for me to step back from my own, "I'm usually cool with chicks following me. I mean, I can't really blame them, but..."

That was just too much. "Oh get over yourself." I snorted. It wasn't the brightest move I could have made, considering my situation, but I was fairly confident that even if he seemed quite capable of shooting me, that he wasn't going to actually do it without a good reason. I could still salvage this, get back on the case, and most important, get that damned gun off of me.

I took a slow deep breath, careful to keep my hands where he could see them, well clear of the throwers in my thigh sheath. "OK, let's just take a breath here. I'm just out here hunting." technically the truth. "I'll admit, I wanted to scare you off before all that racket you were making spooked the whole area." also true. "I wasn't really going to cut you."

Silence.

"Not even a little," I added hopefully.

He sounded neither convinced, nor amused when he said, "Right, you hunt with a knife."

My voice went cold, "When I have to."

My mind scolded me. That crack, in that tone, was not going to help my situation, but I was finding it hard to care at the moment. Down the road, swapping stories over beers we would both laugh over the fact that Dean had a way of cutting through my emotional control, straight to the worst of my nature from the second we met. Down the road, it would be freakin' hilarious, but at the moment, I was the idiot that had brought a knife to a gunfight, and apparently thought the best course of action while ten feet from the wrong end of a .45 was to give the cocksure kid holding it a reason to be nervous. I'm not sure why he didn't shoot me. I probably would have shot me.

On top of everything else, we were burning daylight. I really didn't want to get caught out there after dark with no idea yet just what it was that I was after. I needed to move this thing along. "Look kid," I forced myself back to a calm, measured tone, "at the risk of ruining whatever Brad Pitt, action adventure fantasy you're living out, you're not the first person to hold a gun on me, so unless you plan on being the last, how about we just write this off as the worst blind date ever, and go our separate ways?"

"I've got a better idea." neither the gun or his eye wavered, "How about you tell me what you know about people who come out hear and disappear? Cause right now, it's looking a lot like Lost Wood has its own little backwoods Jane the Ripper. Just what is it you hunt?"

Oh, that was just great. He really did think he was Brad Pitt, and I was about to get hauled to the local sheriff at gunpoint, if he didn't just shoot me himself. "Wait, just wait, let's just ease back a little here. Bill and Debbie Clark, right? Local couple, came out here camping, just disappeared, no signs of foul play or animal attack, walked off from their camp and the trail just went cold, that's why we're both out here, right?"

"Keep talking." he prompted.

"That's it. That's what I know. I picked up the story in town and came out to look into it. Something out here killed a mess of stock, and possibly two people."

"Three."

"What?"

"Possibly, probably killed three people. Search volunteer didn't come back in yesterday. The sheriff's ordered all civilians out of the area and passed it on to the state police." he eyed me in a way I didn't like. "Nobody's supposed to be out here."

"Including you, I'm guessing."

He didn't answer except with a shrug and an expression that said he conceded the point.

This was taking too long. I still had no idea what the X factor was. For all I knew, it could be stalking up on us now. I did a quick scan of the area, wishing I had some idea what I was even looking for. All I could do was check for signs of movement, or anything that seemed off.

"All right, look, this is getting us nowhere. If you really think that I could jump two, no three people, drag the bodies off, and clean up the scene leaving no trace, then go ahead and shoot me."

It was a tense few seconds before he lowered the gun and shoved it into the small of his back.

I was still hoping that I could run him off and get him out of my hair. "You know," I remarked, as I retrieved my blade, "since it's not safe out here, maybe you should..." I waved off in the general direction of civilization.

"Yeah well I don't scare easy, sweetheart, so nice dancing with you, but maybe you should..." he mimicked my wave.

I bit down on my lip to quell the rising frustration. I was losing precious time. I still had no idea what the X factor was, or if it was being run off by the commotion, or maybe coming to investigate it, and I couldn't do anything until I made sure this smug bastard didn't end up Lost Wood's next MIA. "Listen...um, Brad..."

"Dean." he interrupted.

"Dean," I amended, "truth time, obviously you can handle yourself, but there's something out there, and I don't know what yet, but I promise you, it's something you can't handle. You need to go back to town or the next time somebody sees your pretty face, it's going to be in the picture on your obituary, capiche?"

He opened his mouth to say something but instead ended up giving me a long curious look. "When you said you were out here hunting, you meant you were out here _hunting_."

I had not expected that. No wonder he had gotten the drop on me so easy, not that it soothed my wounded pride any.

"Um yeah, and you know, thanks for the attempted assist, but you're pretty much a bull in a china shop out here. No offense, I'm sure your all that and a bag of chips inside city limits, but this obviously isn't your home field. All you're doing out here is fouling my crime scene, blowing my element of surprise, oh and not to mention, pissing me off. Why don't you head back to where they keep the people, have a few beers, check out the townie action, and in the morning, you can find something more suited to your own talents. I've got this one."

"You know what?" he snapped, "that's crap. I seem to remember my gun on you, so if you're so good, how did that happen, cowgirl?"

My eyes narrowed, "Because, _dude_, I didn't plant a blade between your shoulders as soon as I got you on visual, which I'm beginning to regret. You only knew I was there because you let me get in so close. You're still alive because I didn't plan on killing you, so don't get cocky. The X factor out there," I stabbed a finger at the horizon, "isn't going to feel that way about it."

"Maybe, but that's the gig. You start a hunt, you finish it, or it finishes you, and if it does you go down swinging. Just the rules of the game." He ran one hand over his short cropped hair. "I don't want to even think about what my dad would do if I bailed on a hunt and left some unarmed chick out in the middle of nowhere with who knows what kind of evil son of a bitch, no matter how much of a bitch she's being."

Nature must have a sense of the dramatic. That was the moment a sudden wind barreled through, kicking up a dust cloud and sending a shower of leaves floating down from a nearby tree. I twisted, my left hand crossing my body for the blade stashed behind my right shoulder as my right went to my thigh sheath for an underhand throw that left my hand a second after the first. "How's that for unarmed, smart guy?" I asked snidely, pointing at the two leaves now pinned neatly to the tree's trunk.

He somehow managed to look impressed and condescending at the same time. Wordlessly, he reached behind himself and pulled his gun with calm, demonstrative movements. With a glance in my direction to make sure I was watching, he fired off a double tap snapshot, tagging both leaves.

"I ain't leaving." he said, dropping the clip to replace the spent rounds.

"Well gee," I snarked in response, "if you're staying, do you think you can make any more god damned noise? You may not have given it enough warning that we're coming for it."

He smirked, "Hey, if it comes to us, I get to gank it that much sooner."

"If we're lucky, and it's nothing that will need silver, or consecrated iron, or any one of a dozen other special factors. If all it takes is a standard load, we're all good." I grumped off to retrieve my spent blades. If he had nicked either of them I was going to kill him. "But if we're stuck with each other, you follow my lead. You're on my turf."

Despite my certainty that the barely audible, "whatever" wasn't meant as an agreement to those terms he asked, "So what's our play, umm..."

"Guuen," I answered, "I want to get a look at the campsite."

"That way." he pointed.

"And you know that because...?"

"Volunteered for the search party yesterday" he answered smugly. "So you want to follow my lead, or try to find it on your own?"

I gestured for him to take the lead and hoped he didn't notice my teeth digging into my tongue. God damn hunters anyway, egotistical, self impressed dicks, every single one of them.


	4. How We Moved On

I think its safe to say that neither one of us was exactly thrilled with the arrangement. We both saw the other as an interloper, not just a trespasser on what we regarded as our rightful territory, but a needless complication, someone to have to look out after on top of getting the job done.

He had been there first, having arrived in Lost Wood days before, and I guess I could respect, reluctantly, that he felt that gave him a prior claim. On the other hand, he was an urban hunter, more suited to disabling security systems and investigative interviews than noticing anomalies in local flora and fauna or interpreting the subtle clues to be found in broken twig or disturbed rock.

As much as I hated to admit it, he had made a better job of the legwork than I had. That gave him a better working knowledge of the intricacies of the case than I had bothered to pick up before rushing into the fray armed only with some local diner gossip. He'd enjoyed rubbing that one in my face, and while it chafed at the time, looking back, I pretty much had that coming.

It wasn't a long hike to the Clark's abandoned camp, maybe an hour under normal conditions. Dean, however, was taking advantage of the long stride afforded him by his impressive height to set an expeditious pace. That, and I was the one humping everything I owned in a backpack. To be fair, I'm sure he'd have been willing to slow down just as soon as I swallowed my pride and admitted I needed him to. I guess we'll never know for sure because there was a pecking order to establish, which meant that between struggling to keep up and begging for mercy, there was only one real choice.

Still, it was a long time to try and maintain a chilly silence. Testing where the border lay between our individual boundaries eventually started to seem like a better way to pass the time than trying to out ignore each other. It was sporadic conversation, punctuated with periodic dust ups that would lead to another span of us silently tolerating one another.

"So, Gwen," he broke the current silence. I was stewing over having been called out on short forming the investigation. Even so, I secretly welcomed the conversation, if only because when we were talking, he slowed down some.

"Its Guuen," I corrected him for the third time, "You're still not saying it right." It was a common ploy from my usual bag of tricks. Create a confusing situation for someone and it naturally diverts a part of their attention towards trying to reason out the puzzle. The distraction makes it easier to take control of the conversation and direct it where you want it to go. That's actually why I spell it that way to begin with. At the moment, I was just using it for my own amusement. It was a little petty, but so was the intentionally challenging pace he was setting, so I figured I had it coming.

I concentrated on not letting myself crack a smile at the sight of him quietly repeating both versions, trying to detect any difference between them. "Not hearing it." he admitted with a shake of his head.

"OK, listen," I explained, letting myself indulge in enjoying the moment, "you're saying Gwen, G, W, E, N. It's Guuen, G, double-U, E, N. Get it now?"

That brought our progress to a halt when he turned to confront me. "Now I know you're just screwing with me." he accused.

"If you say so." I gave in dramatically.

"All right, forget it. How 'bout this? Do you have a last name?"

"Sure, a couple dozen, how many do you want?"

"You know," he grumbled, "you're a real pain in the ass."

"I'm aware." I informed him dryly, setting out again. It looked like play time was over, and no sense in letting a little harmless ribbing escalate into a real battle. I still needed him to show me to the campsite. I mean, sure, I probably could have found it on my own eventually. That had been the original plan after all, but no telling how much extra time that might chew up. "Look, Dean," I said when he'd easily caught up to me, "people, they aren't my best thing. That's why I prefer dealing with them after they're dead. It's less complicated, fewer rules."

"And so you work alone because nobody can pronounce your damn name, is that it?" he asked snarkily.

"I work alone because that's how I like it." I clarified.

I worked alone because if anybody made a stupid mistake that ended up getting me killed, it was going to be me. I didn't want my death on anybody else's conscience. On the other side of it, if my stupid mistake got anybody killed, that was also going to be me, cause I didn't want anyone else on mine. If, or rather when, I went down, it was going to be clean, no entanglements. It's just easier that way, better for everyone.

Dean, however, was not going to let it drop, "Oh come on, even the Lone Ranger had Tonto."

"I'll work with other hunters," I admitted, "sometimes, if I respect their skills. And I guess everybody's been saddled with a rookie or two that was going to get themselves killed without a babysitter." I fixed him with a hard meaningful gaze, "Once in a while, someone just won't, go, away."

He smirked in self impressed sort of way, "So, you're saying you respect my skills."

Like I said, we were finding the border, learning where the lines were drawn, and which ones were not to be crossed.

"And you won't use a gun." he continued, "I don't get that. That's just, it's just wrong."

I paused before answering, trying to gauge if he was hoping to push a few buttons with a critical observation, or just making conversation. "I never said I won't use one." I answered, deciding it really didn't make much difference one way or the other, "I said I don't carry one, too many complications for my lifestyle."

"Your lifestyle?" he repeated, clearly not getting it, "You're a hunter."

"I'm a transient." I countered. From his expression, he wasn't connecting the dots. "Imaging keeping your piece on you 24/7 because you don't have any safe place to stash it, no vehicle, no safe house." I explained trying to provide some context. "A female, on the road alone, most cops won't begrudge you six inches of cold steel protection, even if it is technically over the legal limit. An unlicensed, concealed gun, that tends to ruffle some feathers. Believe me, I've had enough vagrancy busts to know."

He considered that for a moment, and I swear, he almost sounded sympathetic when he said, "Yeah, I guess I get that. That'd suck."

"Besides," I went on, "a gun's pretty useless in most situations anyway. Djinn, Raksasha, Vatalla, I could keep going, you need a blade or you're monster chow. Not to mention spirits of any kind, ever try shooting one of them? Not helpful."

He must have felt that he couldn't really argue with that because we lapsed into another silence. Sure enough, it didn't take long for him to pick up the pace again.

"So, tell me about the search party." I prompted. Keeping him talking kept the pace less punishing and I figured we were better off focused on the job than letting wounds to our egos fester until we went for each other's throats. "The guy just disappeared, like the Clarks?"

"Pretty standard," he responded, "they put us in teams, gave us zones to cover. It sucked rocks because I couldn't do jack without drawing attention, too many eyes."

I nodded, understanding, "Sounds awful."

"It wasn't my idea of a good time, but hide in plain sight was the only play I had, for all the good it did." he grumbled.

I started to get why he was being so territorial. This wasn't just about the case. It was about another vic that went missing, not just before he could finish the job, but while he'd been right there on scene. He was blaming himself for not stopping it. This had become personal. I got it, we've all been there.

I probably should have said something, but what is there to say in those situations? We're not going to save everybody? Yeah, right, every hunter's heard that after a hunt that didn't go the way it should have and it never helps, ever. It's just part of the hunter grief ritual, pointless but persistent.

"Anyway," he pivoted back to his account, saving me from having to drudge up the right words, "when they called us back in we were a man down, Lyle Dawson. The sheriff sent a deputy out after him, and I invited myself to play back up. Sun was down by the time we got there, so when we didn't find him right off, you know, with a busted leg or something, there wasn't jack we could do but pack it in. Sheriff ordered everybody out of the area and shoved the whole mess off on the state troopers. Figure we've got til Monday before they show."

"So that gives us the rest of today and tomorrow to wrap this up, and so far, not much to go on." I summarized glumly.

"Is there ever?" he groused.

I'm pretty sure that was the first time we ever agreed about something.

We probably have the snake to thank for finally getting us on the same page. I'd lagged back for one of my periodic scans of the horizon, ironically, trying to make sure nothing was coming up on our six at the very moment that I should have had eyes front. By the time I caught the flash of movement in the brush and yelled for Dean to freeze it was already too late.

The buzz of the rattle sent out an ominous warning as the reptile's head rose up out of the scrub, mouth open menacingly and body coiled to strike. From where I stood, a few paces behind, I could see Dean's hand moving behind him, going for his gun.

"Don't!" I warned him urgently.

With the slightest turn of his head, he hissed over his shoulder, "I'm not going to just stand here and get bit." The snake hissed warningly, agitated by his movement.

"Spook it," I told him evenly, but seriously, "and that's exactly what will happen."

"So what do I do, Jungle Jane?" he whispered loudly, not taking his eye from the snake. It postured, sending out dangerous threats not a foot and half away from him.

"Nothing, just stay still," I instructed taking a slow step to one side, trying to circle around to a clear line of sight without attracting its attention. "Whatever you do, don't give it a reason to strike."

"Awesome," he muttered sarcastically, but he held his ground. Honestly, I couldn't help but be impressed. A pissed off rattler puts on a pretty intimating display even from a distance. Yet Dean was standing there with the thing practically under his feet, keeping his cool. Kid or not, the guy had the stones of a riverboat gambler. I just hoped he could keep it up.

One carefully placed step at a time I circled around for a clear shot. Gently I eased one of the throwers from its sheath. Dean risked a glance out of the corner of his eye. "Should I be ready to jump back in case you miss."

"You'd never make it." I cautioned him. "One, those things are like lightening. Two, they can strike two thirds their body length, and three, I'm not going to miss." I let the knife fly. It pierced the reptile about a hand span behind the head, pinning it to the ground. It thrashed, writhing in death throes.

"Jesus Christ!" Dean yelled, jumping back from the contorting tangle of coils.

"Are you all right?" I checked, "It didn't get you?"

"Oh, I'm just peachy." he snarled. "Man, I **hate** it out here!"

"It shows." I observed, "Make sure you stay back. Sometimes they strike after they're dead."

He shuffled back a bit, muttering about creepy ass, zombie snakes. A second later the sound of a shot was echoing over the landscape, and the headless reptilian body lay still.

"You just had to shoot something today, didn't you?" I sighed.

"It's not gonna be biting anything now, is it?" he justified himself. "Um...by the way, thanks, I guess."

Well, that got awkward fast. He was thanking me? I was the one that had dropped the ball and let him blunder right into the damn snake in the first place. "Forget it," I was eager to move past the moment, "Give me a sec, and then we'll get moving." I knelt to collect the rattle, "It is a shame though. This could have been dinner if there was time to dress it out."

"You eat snakes?" he sounded disgusted. To be fair, after our morning together, he'd have been totally justified in thinking I was messing with him.

"Rattlesnake's good eating, if it's fresh." I told him.

"Don't tell me," he said, "tastes like chicken, right?"

"No," I rolled my eyes, "who told you that? Rattler tastes like squirrel. Let's move."

**XXXXX**

The campsite was eerie in how pristine it was. Days of wind and weather had taken some toll, and something, probably raccoons, had scavenged anything that smelled like food, but it wasn't trashed. It wasn't ripped apart as if something, natural or otherwise, had attacked it. If not for the corral of crime scene tape it would be easy to imagine that the missing couple would just stroll over the horizon at any moment, back from a walk, ready to crack beers and toast marshmallows.

Dean set about inspecting the still erect tent, while I walked the perimeter, hoping to find some sign of tracks from either the vics or the unknown. It hardly turned out to be worth the effort. The trail, when I found it, was days cold, four, maybe five at least.

I knelt down for a pointless closer look. "Do you know if anybody tried to follow this when it fresh?" I called over to where Dean was poking about the tent's interior.

He looked up from his rummaging, "First person to find it would have been Joe Clark, two days ago. The way I heard it, he tried, but gave up and went for the sheriff because it got too crazy to follow, going in circles, crossing over itself, doubling back."

"Wait," I interrupted, sure I must have misunderstood, "they were just wandering out there? Like they were lost?"

He shrugged, "Looks like, so?"

I stood and cast my gaze over the surrounding terrain, looking for I didn't know what. "Bill grew up on this land." I observed. "No way he gets lost this close to a site he's camped his whole life."

"That is weird." he agreed, abandoning the tent, "Well, it's obvious nothing happened here. Looks like they walked off and something kept them from making it back. Question is, what?"

"If we could figure out where, maybe we could find a clue as to what." I said, frustrated.

"What, you can't follow that, Danielle Boone?" he asked sarcastically, approaching to have a look at the now useless tracks for himself.

"Are you kidding me?" I scoffed, "After this long? Even if I could, a couple of dozen locals spent all day yesterday trampling all over the evidence. About all I can tell is, it's a safe bet they didn't go willingly."

"They leave a note?" he asked skeptically.

"Almost as good," I knelt down to point out what was left of a faint footprint, "See this? From the size, I'm guessing that's Debbie's. Tell me, would you go for a walk, even a short one, over that terrain, barefoot? During snake season?"

He grimaced and I wished I'd chosen my words a little more carefully. If he took it as a dig though, he didn't make an issue of it. "So, either something made them go out there, or they had a brown acid moment. No signs of struggle, trail all kinds of crazy, I'm betting on door number two."

"That's what I'm thinking." I confirmed. "I guess it's too much to hope that anyone ever found out where the trail ended." I glanced at the time worn marks, wishing I could just will them back to usefulness.

"Trails," he corrected me, "They left together, but it looks like they didn't stay together."

"Why would they do that?" I wondered out loud, rising and dusting off my knees. "That makes no kind of sense. Survival 101, you don't separate when you're lost. They were both experienced campers. They would have known that."

"Hey, put it on the list." he shrugged. "We've got a whole big, steaming pile of 'doesn't make sense'. I'll tell you what does make sense. No tracks, no physical evidence, means some kind of spirit." He produced a gadget from his jacket, an EMF meter I assumed, "You wanna stay here and keep playing Camp Fire Girl, you go for it. I'm gonna go find us a lead." He switched the device on and made his way back across the campsite, eyeing the readings.

He was right. A spirit did make sense. It fit the evidence, or rather the lack of evidence, but something, something I couldn't shake was poking at the back of my brain, like a memory just out of reach. Something wasn't adding up and I couldn't put my finger on what."

The EMF chirped and creaked in the distance as Dean swept the area. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate, trying to put the pitifully few facts we had into some kind of order. I retraced my day, back to the diner where I'd picked up the case that morning. "Lost two head myself." I could almost hear the gruff, old voice saying.

That was it. That was what was off. Spirits will engage in a lot of strange behavior, comes with the territory of being trapped between worlds. Everything they experience is distorted through the lens of their own pain and confusion, eventually their insanity. That's par for the course, and you get used to it. But, cattle rustling?

No, the more I thought about it, the less sense it made. Sure, I'd seen animals slaughtered by vengeful ghosts, but just missing? That generally pointed towards something with hardware, something that needed to feed. Paradox was, physical X factors leave tracks.

So, where the heck were they?

Just beyond the reach of my thoughts, something whispered, like the memory of having a memory, the kind of thought you want to swat away like an annoying gnat because it won't stop distracting you. "Oh, faex!" I cursed, my eyes flying open as the blossom of a whisper bloomed into a clear image in my head.

A steady stream of muttered profanities leaked out of my mouth, "kropos, skatus, koites" as I moved out in a hurried stride to intercept Dean's criss-cross of the camp.

"Come on," I barked urgently, catching him by the arm, "we've got to go."

"What?" he jerked out of my grip, "Are you nuts? Why?"

I looked him dead in the eye. This was not the time to end up in another round of 'my dog's better than your dog'. "Because," I told him, hoping my tone would carry the full weight of just how serious I was, "I'm pretty sure I know what we're after, and if I'm right, then we need to go...NOW!"


	5. How We Teamed Up

"OK, one more time, a key what?" Dean asked as we hurried to make distance between ourselves and the abandoned camp. There was no way of knowing for sure how far was enough to assume we were on safe ground so we were covering as much of it as we could as quickly as possible.

"A kee'lut," I repeated, "I've never heard of one this far south. Never thought I'd tangle with one, not in the lower 48. I don't know a lot about them, just bits and pieces. They're scavengers, carrion eaters."

"Well, it sounds to me like you didn't check your work, hunter girl, cause all our vics were alive." He wasn't happy about the way I'd rushed us off the scene. It had put him in a foul mood and he wanted to make sure that I knew it.

"Let me finish." I instructed testily, "They get in your head, mess with your memory. You lose your way, forget where you were going…"

"And eventually something takes you out and then it's lunchtime." he interrupted, "Great, a predatory ghoul, any more good news?"

I resisted the urge to point out that what he'd done was, in fact, the exact opposite of letting me finish. We had higher priorities for the time being than playing one up. "They're invisible and so are their tracks." I supplied, resolving to stay focused on the case. There'd be all the time in the world to kill each other once the job was done.

"Awesome," he responded, sounding like he thought it really wasn't, "How do we kill it?"

"No idea," I admitted, "never hunted one, never met anybody that has. It's just something I picked up along the line."

He chewed on that for a moment while I braced myself to get called out on missing a pretty critical piece of the puzzle. "all right," he said, "so we haul ass back to town before we wind up the next thing on the value menu and we figure it out."

That could have been the end of our impromptu partnership. Neither one of us had consented to circumstance throwing us at each other, and that would have been to opportune time for us to exchange backhanded pleasantries and go in opposite directions. The only reason we didn't was one very small word "we".

It wasn't much of an olive branch, more of a twig really. He hadn't offered a ride so much as declared I'd be taking it, which pruned it back a good chunk. If we'd been talking about a black dog or even a werewolf, I'd have told him where he could put his ride. The truth was though, this wasn't shaping up to be what you would call the best scenario for a solo hunt, and my pride wasn't worth my life. Dean, I realized, must have come to the same conclusion. "That works." I conceded, sparing us both the burden of actually having to discuss it.

It was a shorthand that left a lot unsaid, with words anyway. Somehow with Dean and I, the less we said, the better we got along. There were things we both understood at a core level that language defied attempts to express. We generally didn't bother with the pointless search for words that didn't exist, labels for things that no name could really be put to. When we got it, we were both willing to just leave it at that and move on.

**XXXXX**

I wasn't willing to admit the burn that the day's forced marches had ignited in my legs. When the access road on which Dean had parked came into view on the horizon I kept my relief to myself. As we closed the distance I could make out the shape of a black four door that stood quiet sentry on the road, looking for all the world as if it had been watching Dean's back while he'd been away.

Generally speaking, I'm not usually much impressed by anything mechanical. The way I see it, the more moving parts something has the more ways it can go wrong on you. Life tends to be complicated enough without sending St Murphy engraved invitations to drop by unannounced. This beauty though, she was an exception.

Some hunters will tool around in the worst heaps. Trust me, I've seen more than my fair share. Disgrace to the profession really, but a ride's a ride, and I usually didn't have the luxury of being picky. This car however, she had an aura.

"This is yours?" I asked, circling around to take in the sight of her, impressed in spite of myself.

The pride was easy to read in his voice when he responded, "Yeah, this is my Baby." He leaned on crossed arms on the roof, glowing like a mother hen showing off her chicks.

"Hello, Baby," I greeted her.

Dean was positively beaming, "Three twenty-seven V8, four barrel carb, two hundred and seventy-five horses under the hood. Stock 67 Impala will do zero to sixty in eight point nine but I've got Baby here tuned down to eight point two."

He might as well have been speaking an obscure dialect of ancient Aramaic. I looked at him blankly, "Um, yeah, I gotta be honest, the only part of that I got was 'horses'." That got me a chilly silence in response. "But she's pretty." I added.

Judging by the disgusted look he threw me before yanking open the door and ducking inside that wasn't the response he had been hoping for. An awkward moment passed as he sat behind the wheel and stewed over it before he leaned over to pop the passenger door. "You gettin' in?" he asked irritably.

"Without an introduction?"

"A what?" by his tone, he was hoping he'd misheard.

"Baby and I haven't been properly introduced," I explained.

"You don't do people," his voice was strained, "but you want to be introduced to my car?"

"I think that would be appropriate, yes." I answered. Honestly, I wasn't just being a smart ass. Baby felt like more than just some machine. Somehow, it felt wrong to treat her like one.

Dean glared at me for long enough to decide that I was serious. "Baby," he spoke, conceding the dispute, "this is Gwen…"

"It's Guuen," I leaned in and whispered loudly to the side-view mirror. OK, I'll admit, that was me being a smart ass. It was just too easy to let pass.

"Shaddup," he tossed in my direction before continuing, "She's got a smart mouth and a massive attitude problem, but we're going to give her a lift out of here anyway so she doesn't get herself ganked on my watch." He shot me an impatient look, "All right?"

"Thank you," I said sincerely, siding inside, "and thank you for the ride, Baby."

Dean and I got off to a rocky start. Kind of had a rocky always if you want to be completely honest about it. Baby and I, however, we got along right off the bat. I think Dean secretly enjoyed that, even if it did also annoy the hell out of him.

Driving seemed to relax Dean. As the vintage classic ate up the miles back to Lost Wood I observed him with interest, watching the tension melt off of him. Behind the wheel was one of the few places that he could feel completely in control and one thing about Dean, he liked being in control.

We were in his vehicle and he had the driver's side, which meant that, for the moment, he was the one calling the shots. My spot in the passenger seat had relegated me, at least temporarily, to the effective status of sidekick to his lead, and while he didn't come right out and say it, it wasn't hard to see that he preferred it that way.

With nothing much else to do I used the time to try and deduce what I could about him through observation. If I was going to go into a hot spot, trusting him to watch my blind side, I wanted to know that he was up to the job.

He had a casual confidence about him, a deep seated belief in his own skills, which I hoped was well deserved and not just ego. Overestimating one's own abilities is the second leading cause of hunter death. Number one is, getting so worn out on the job, so tired of it all, that survival starts to slide down the list of priories. That day though, it was a long time off before either of us was going have to deal with that. That was a time of youthful naivety that allowed us to indulge in the thrill of the hunt and the glory of the victory. The inevitable last hunt that comes for us all was years off in an obscure future, penciled in for a day too far off to be bothered with worrying about.

Sometimes I miss feeling that way, even as I'm shaking my head in dismay at some bright eyed rookie, hoping for their own sake that they'll outgrow it before it gets them killed.

A nervous side eye from Dean made me aware that I'd been staring. "What?" he asked sharply.

"Nothing," I shook my head, "just thinking."

"Well, knock it off." he grumbled, "It's creepy. Thinking about what?"

"Nothing," I insisted, "It's just, well, the hair, the jacket, the attitude, the probably unhealthy level of emotional attachment to your car, you're really working a whole James Dean thing there. I was wondering if maybe you were named after him."

That prompted a dismissive snort and ended the conversation. It didn't seem like he minded all that much though. At any rate, it kept me from having to admit that I'd been quietly assessing him. All things considered, I assumed it was a two way street.


	6. HowAwkward

"So, library?" he asked. We'd headed out with no other destination than "back to town" in mind. Now that we were securely outside the threat zone it was time to narrow those parameters.

I considered the suggestion before responding. "I don't know how much good that would do us. Inuit legend hasn't really hit the information highway yet. It's still mostly oral, believe it or not. Even in a decent library, I don't think there'd be much to find. Around here," I gestured at rustic scenery flashing by, "Does Lost Wood even have a library?"

I'd assumed he would know better than I would, having been around longer and taking more time with the legwork. He didn't answer, which I took as a "no". Instead, he said, "Figures, doesn't it? Anybody that has a run in with one of these freaks either winds up dinner or doesn't remember crap if they're lucky enough to survive, which leaves us shooting blanks in the dark. That's just great. For all we know, we've already run into it and just don't remember."

"I doubt that. We made it to the camp and back to the car." I said.

"Yeah, but think about it, we were talking about it the whole time, reminding each other what was going on."

That wasn't a bad point, but I wasn't about to go back out there on a maybe. Besides, we still didn't know how to put the thing down. Thinking out loud I mused, "We could go right to the source. There's a lot of local tribal land, but this sucker's an out of towner." Already knowing his likely answer I asked, "You up for a road trip half-way to Alaska?"

"Yeah, that's not happening." he said firmly.

"Well, then, I guess we start making phone calls because I'll be damned if I have a better idea." I sighed. Reluctantly I fished out my phone. I wasn't overjoyed with the prospect. I knew going in how little point there was.

My current phone was fairly new. The previous one had ended up collateral damage in a roadhouse incident involving some hot tempers and a five ace deck. I'd gotten out with only some minor bruises to show for it, but my phone had gone on to a better place taking my stored data with it and leaving me with only my memories. Those memorized numbers, along with the few that had been added since all summed up to a pretty meager contact list. Didn't even hit double digits.

My eyes traveled over the entries as I mentally checked off each one. Lee hadn't picked up in months, dead, or maybe just off the grid. Lacie, the last I knew, was still staring out the window of an Arizona state home for the traumatically confused after a hunt gone bad. I lingered over the Pastor's number. He would always pick up, always had. It was tempting, but this wasn't his area. He wouldn't know anything helpful, and there was no way I was going to make some squishy emotional support call in present company.

I sighed, reviewing both the list and my life choices, letting myself pretend I'd missed something, knowing I hadn't.

All I had was Luna, and that was another call I was hesitant to make in front of Dean. Don't get me wrong. Luna's the best researcher I had ever come across and to this day, that's still true, but she's sort of an acquired taste. Some people march to their own drummer. Luna's drummer was the Energizer Bunny, which had tumbled down a flight of stairs years ago and hadn't hit the bottom yet.

Still, she was all I had, and the alternative would have been admitting to Dean that I had nothing. Gritting my teeth, I selected her number, praying to any god not otherwise occupied that I'd catch her on low volume. Yeah, that would have been nice.

"Luna," I jumped in as soon as the call connected, hoping I could head off the chatter before it started, "I need you to...North Dakota." Well, so much for that plan.

"Listen," I tried to cut into the flow coming through the receiver, "I've got a...no, that wasn't working out."

I was acutely aware of the unimpressed side eye coming from the driver's seat. Trying to take control of the conversation I plowed I for another attempt, "Luna, there's a...about three days."

Any attempt Dean was making to choke back his laughter was minimal at best. My cheeks grew hot and I shifted in the seat, putting as much of my back as I could towards him, trying to hide the flush. With a deep breath, I blurted out, "LUNAINEEDYOUTOFOCUSFORMERIGHTNOWOK?"

Thank some unknown, lesser god for small favors, the line fell silent, which made it easy to hear it when the dam broke on Dean's laughter. I ignored it. I had a narrow window of opportunity that would close on me if I was too slow. "OK, do I have your attention?" I asked, blocking out the chuckling, "Good, now I need anything you can find on something called a kee'lut, got that? Good, I'll be waiting."

"Oh, that sounded promising." Dean said as I hung up, still obviously amused.

What could I say? Luna's track record spoke for itself, but first contact with her didn't exactly inspire confidence. "I know, I know," I said, not even trying to bull my way through it, "she's as flighty as a hummingbird on west coast turn around, but if it's on a computer anywhere, she'll find it. She's better adapted to the cyber-verse than reality."

That honestly didn't count for much. We'd already established that it was slim odds that what we needed would be hidden away in some book or database. It was a hail Mary, and I knew it. I figured it would be the first thing he'd point out.

Instead, he nodded, kind of knowingly, "I got a brother like that. Good kid, but such a geek."

"Great," I said, happy to change the subject, "give him a call. Let's get some more eyes on this thing."

"I'm starving." he announced out of the clear blue, "What do you say we strategize over a burger and a beer?"

That did sound good. It had been a long day since the toast and coffee I'd hastily stuffed down on my way out of the diner that morning. I quickly agreed.

I'd expected us to get back on track on seeking out any possible sources of intel, but the question turned out to be less of a random interruption of the conversation and more of a bootlegger reverse away from it.

He'd mentioned his dad, so I figured hunting was, at least somewhat of a family matter for him. I didn't get his resistance to tapping that resource, especially since on our own, we'd come up with a whole lot of nothing. "So, your brother, he hunts too?" I ventured into the fresh silence.

"No," his response was quick and abrupt, "research mostly. He's just a kid."

"OK, well this is just research." I pointed out. I could understand him not wanting his kid brother to do anything dangerous, but we were just talking about pushing some buttons for crying out loud.

Without answering he reached over and sharply snapped on the tape deck. 'Enter Sandman' blared from the speakers. Jaw set, eyes on the road, he continued to drive, pointedly not speaking to me.

Side B of 'The Black Album', at a higher level of volume than was strictly necessary, staved off any further attempts at conversation. I gave up and sank into wondering about Dean's problem with bringing his family in. He drove on, seemingly intent on pretending that the subject hadn't come up.

Eventually, a tourist trap of a bar and grill presented itself off the side of the road. He pulled off without bothering to check if the place met with my approval.

As soon as he cut the engine in the parking lot, I pounced. "Do you want to get this thing, or not? Because unless we can get some intel, I don't see how we…"

"Look," he cut me off sharply but hesitated to say anything more. When he did, he ground the words out, like it was broken glass over the tongue to say them. "It's just, you know, my dad, he sent me here with a job to do. I'm not going to go running back for help because I couldn't hack it. We'll figure it out. Now drop it."

Was he kidding me? Daddy issues?

It was a lot more complicated than that, of course, which I didn't know at the time. I was thinking of the job and getting it done. Dean was a means to that ends, one more temp agency partner that I probably wouldn't ever think about much once the hunt was over. I wasn't there to hand hold him through his family baggage, whatever it was. Also, that was before I found out that his baby face had caused me to underestimate his age by a few years, so I ended up putting both feet in my mouth, talking to him like the moody teenager I thought he was.

"OK," I challenged him, "so tell me, what's your dad going to say when we end up with another vic because you didn't have the guts to admit when you needed help?"

If looks could kill this story would have ended right there, with Dean considering the best place to dump the charred remains of my smoldering corpse.

"Fine," he snapped, digging angrily into his pocket, "You know, this whole pushy, girl power thing is a real turn off."

I almost responded to that, but the smarter half of my brain talked me out of it. He was making the call, so I quit while I was ahead.

"Sammy, how's it going?" the pleasant tone he directed at the phone contrasted sharply with the daggers he was looking at me. "No," he continued, "things kind of went a little sideways. This thing's upgraded from cows to campers. I've got three missing locals and state cops heading in to get in the way."

"What?" his tone became urgent, "No, don't put dad on. I just need you to...Sam? SAMMY!" Hastily he fumbled with the door handle amidst a stream of angry muttering. He threw the door open and, with a nasty look in my direction, scrambled out. He slammed it behind him hard. Even though he was already moving away from the car with long strides, I still heard it clearly when he yelled, "Damn it!"

I'd known Dean long enough to know that he had a temper and very little filter. I'd also seen him face down a bull rattler with a full mad on. The guy didn't shake easy and he was shook. I wasn't sure what to make of it.

Curiously, I watched through the window as he became a completely different person. His expression became a serious one that I hadn't seen on him before. His spine stiffened and shoulders squared, replacing the relaxed swagger that came more naturally to him.

It sank in just how thoroughly I'd screwed up, just how far over the wrong line I'd gone.

As discreetly as the creaky door would allow I let myself out of the car and headed straight for the bar's front door. I kept my eyes carefully averted from where Dean stood, pretending that I hadn't seen a damn thing.


End file.
